Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
On the Shortness of Life,
Oliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks
the paradox of limitation, which runs through everything that follows: the more you try to manage your time with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, and freedom from the inevitable constraints of being human, the more stressful, empty and frustrating life gets. But the more you confront the facts of finitude instead – and work with th
... See moreOliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks
A life spent focused on achieving security with respect to time, when in fact such security is unattainable, can only ever end up feeling provisional – as if the point of your having been born still lies in the future, just over the horizon, and your life in all its fullness can begin as soon as you’ve put it, in Arnold Bennett’s phrase, ‘into prop
... See moreOliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks
The only real question about all this finitude is whether we’re willing to confront it or not. And this, for Heidegger, is the central challenge of human existence: since finitude defines our lives, he argues that living a truly authentic life—becoming fully human—means facing up to that fact. We must live out our lives, to whatever extent we can, ... See more
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Truly doing justice to the astonishing gift of a few thousand weeks isn’t a matter of resolving to ‘do something remarkable’ with them. In fact, it entails precisely the opposite: refusing to hold them to an abstract and overdemanding standard of remarkableness, against which they can only ever be found wanting, and taking them instead on their own
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